


Daughters

by Samuraiter



Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1568672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samuraiter/pseuds/Samuraiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beatrix and Garnet make a promise, both to each other and to the children who will carry on from them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daughters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boywonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boywonder/gifts).



> For as fanciful and whimsical as _Final Fantasy IX_ can appear to be at first glance, it can be easy to forget that it can be a pretty grim story in spots, and I had that in mind as I wrote this.

The months after the destruction of the Iifa Tree and the recession of the mists seemed to pour through the fingers like drops of water, becoming a stream of years – not quite a decade, but long enough for Beatrix to see her liege bear a child, long enough for that child, a daughter, to grow up into a blonde-haired image of her mother. Long enough, too, for Beatrix to have a child of her own, also a daughter. The two girls had only one year between them, but they had become playmates from the start – sisters, in effect, and neither Beatrix nor Garnet had any reason to call them anything _but_ sisters.

Beatrix and her Queen observed them at play in the courtyard, looking down at them from a favorite balcony. Castle Alexandria had been reconstructed long ago, but the white stone still seemed as new as it had on the first day it had been laid down, though Beatrix thought, _My memories are still beneath the stones, as old as they are, perhaps as weathered_. Memories of fire and smoke, of blood spilled and lives lost. _Cover them up, bury them deep in the earth, and still they remain_. Her face stayed impassive, but the familiar ache passed through her heart. _Still they remain, though the children play_.

She glanced at Garnet, as ageless as always, though the years had gathered in her eyes, shadows passing through them in moments of silence. How different it had been, serving her instead of the Queen before her, the years of peace and rebuilding helping her to put distance between her and the killing. She had learned to read Garnet, and she occasionally caught glimpses of the same pain. They both remembered the wars, though they had decided to forget that each of them had been on opposite sides at one point or another. The Queen before had long gone, and only Garnet remained.

"Beatrix." The same voice, but it carried the weight of both the office and the years she had put into it. "What are you thinking?" Garnet had learned to read her, in turn, despite all of the effort she put into keeping herself neutral, into being invisible if her Queen had no immediate need of her. "You do not think any of this will last?" Echoing her thoughts. No doubt there had been children playing in the courtyard on the day everything had started falling to pieces, too. "You believe that they will have to relive the horrors?" The horrors, paved over by stone, yet still hiding every time she closed her eyes.

"You and I have not come and gone yet, Your Majesty," she replied, "and you will be here long after I have passed, no doubt. There are years and years left to build the future that they need." She did not mention the troubles that plucked at the edges of the kingdom, be they pockets of mist rising up from deep in the earth and spawning monsters, or be they sparks of rebellion from the most unexpected quarters. She and the others – Steiner, yes, and Zidane, too, among several others – had been there to address every single one, looking for clues to the next trial in each one that they overcame.

"But there is still the fear, is there not?" Cold and hard, like a hand of ice closing around her heart. "That no matter how many years you and I spend at this, there will be one more terror waiting for them, and you and I will not be there to protect them." She turned to look at Beatrix, her face as drawn as if she had become ill. "I think of it all the time, more and more as of late. It almost feels like the dreams I used to have, but there are no dreams, only feelings, and what can I do with those?" A shake of the head. "I wish I could that I am being foolish, but you and I both know better, do we not?"

"Then let me make you a promise, my Queen," Beatrix replied, taking a deep breath to put the fear at bay, to put at the back of her mind like she used to do as a squire. "I am not only your guardian, after all. I am also a teacher." She nodded in the direction of their children, chasing each other through the green grass below. "As all mothers are teachers, in a way. All that I know, I shall pass down not only to my daughter, but to yours, just as I am sure you shall entrust as much to both. When they no longer have us, when their fathers, too, are gone, they shall have each other, always and forever."

"As I have you, Beatrix?" She seemed to be studying her, her dark eyes full of thought. "Except that they shall have each other from the beginning. There shall be nothing to tear them apart. That ... can be my promise to you." She turned back to the railing, looking down into the courtyard, though her gaze seemed to be trained on things beyond it – the memories beneath the stones, perhaps, the blood and the fire, or the fog of things yet to come. "We cannot keep our children from making mistakes, but we can at least teach them not to make _our_ mistakes. We owe that much to them."

"I find that a debt worth repaying," Beatrix answered, leaning upon the railing, taking the hand of her Queen, feeling its smallness and fragility in her grasp despite the strength its owner had displayed to her so many times. "And that is two promises made, then, one from me to you, and one from you to me. Let that be that." Nothing more to be said after that as they both looked down upon their daughters, letting the heaviness of the past disappear amidst the sounds of everyday life, amidst the light laughter of children who had never seen the things that they had seen, who did not yet know those horrors.

 **END**.


End file.
